Halt on Indian mango exports leaves many without a taste of home during COVID-19 pandemic

Every year around this time, tiny, juicy passengers board planes from India to join Jersey City’s Indian community and offer a special taste of home. Indian mangoes — a ubiquitous part of summer in India — are unlikely to make the trip to America this year, importers and exporters say. Meanwhile, American retailers don’t want to take the risk of stocking a luxury item during an uncertain economic time, said Hiran Patel, the import manager for Raja Foods, which supplies Patel Brothers, the most prominent Indian grocery chain in the northeastern U.S. New York-based chef Palak Patel said she treks to Jersey City for Indian mangoes every year, grabbing a big box of okra and a bag of rice to round out the trip. Mangoes that are sold in American supermarkets are often sourced from Latin America and simply don’t compare to depth of flavors found in their Indian counterparts, the chef said. This year, the processing facilities in India are closed and FDA inspections are taking place over Zoom, he said. India closed its passenger airspace and is prioritizing shipments of medication and personal protective equipment for the continuing flights, he added. “The movement of the flights without passengers have created pressure on the air freight prices,” the export manager said. “The current air freight rates from Indian to U.S. destinations are experiencing (a) three to four times spike compared to last year.” “We have customers that will buy 10 boxes of Indian mangoes,” he said, “It’s a $400 receipt and what they tell us is they go home, peel them, cut them and then freeze them so they can taste India all year round.”